Fae, Fae Away
by Gnash1
Summary: Klaus has been invited to stay with the witch Harper (OC) and Elijah in their home with a standing challenge that he find a way to get rid of the witch. Klaus finds himself distracted from the task though, by Harper's silent and elusive magic student, Fern (OC). (Some content previously published in The Guardian and removed.)
1. Chapter 1

Klaus stepped out of the snow and onto the broad farmhouse porch wondering what the hell he had gotten himself into. Elijah's little chippy had all but dared him to come stay in her home, tempting him with time to find a way around her considerable magic. The invitation was a first, actually. She had said she had "an open door policy", inviting even him, he supposed. He had to give her credit; either this Harper was a genius or a fool. He hadn't decided which yet.

So here he was, about to make himself comfortable in Harper's Halfway House until he could figure a way to get rid of her….permanently. As things stood now, he faced the possibility of spending a few centuries in a stable somewhere as a beast wallowing in filth if he choked the life out of her as he would've preferred. Klaus rolled his eyes with one blonde eyebrow up as he easily crossed the threshold to her strange little house. _Open door policy, indeed._ At least this Harper was true to her word.

Klaus had to assume that this was where Elijah had been spending so much time over the last few decades. He would disappear without much provocation or excuse and be gone for a month or two at time. Klaus had tried many times to draw out of Elijah exactly what it was that he was up to, but had never gotten far, finding only stony silences. From Elijah that wasn't entirely unheard of, but Klaus had never guessed that Elijah had a woman. Not for this length of time. Elijah would choose a lady every now and then, dabble for a time and reappear later entirely unattached. The idea of Elijah being at home in this place_….a farm?..._ for any time at all was more than he could grasp. His imagination just wasn't powerful enough to see his dignified and serious older brother as a common farmer. _Really?_ He did get a grin out of picturing Elijah in mucking boots cleaning out one of those stables, though. He'd pay good money to see that. There had to be more here than the eye could see, and he had every intention of uncovering all of it in a blaze of glory.

Klaus met Harper's false cheerfulness that first morning with his own brand of quiet disdain. He watched her closely as she moved around her kitchen. Drinking a cup of unimpressive coffee, he wondered how best to antagonize her. She turned after a few minutes of his silence and offered him bagged blood, clearly a supply she kept for Elijah from God knew where. He smiled, his eyes wide and one eyebrow up as he told her he preferred it fresh, _thank you very much_. His lips flattened, suppressing a smile as she had spun, planting both feet angrily.

"I have people coming and going from this place all the time. Your hunting had better not happen here." Her dark eyes narrowed on him in warning.

He raised a brow again, pulling his best innocent expression as he asked quietly, "And if it does?" He sat his coffee cup down, crossing his arms as he pushed back into his seat, waiting for her response.

Harper smiled then too, her black eyes holding secrets he didn't like at all. Honestly, he liked the smile she wore even less. "I wouldn't recommend it." Another dare. _Fair enough. _She had said she didn't bluff, but he didn't believe her for a minute. She couldn't be everywhere at once. His blue eyes narrowed and a humorless smile spread across his face as he nodded at her silently. _Challenge accepted._

An hour later, he answered a light knock at the back door when he looked around and saw that there was no one else to do it. He opened the door to a very pretty young woman with bright green eyes and a long curtain of dark mahogany hair. She was tall for a woman, though several inches shorter than he was. She met his eyes for only a second before she tipped a pale heart shaped face down and refused to look up again. She wore a green jacket and jeans with boots. Rather than speak, she simply slid past him as if she knew just where she was going and he wasn't worth her time.

He stood at the door, though, watching her disappear around a corner and wondering what just happened. _How rude._ No response to his greeting, not a word from that prettily bowed red mouth of hers….not even a smile. He was accustomed to a better response from women. _Much better, actually._

Because he had nothing else to do, he closed the door and he followed the rude little wench. But he turned the corner and she was gone. Her scent, he had noticed it easily, was of fresh pine needles. It was absent too. She had just…..disappeared.

Klaus wandered the entire lower floor of the house and found no sign of her or her pine scent. He climbed the steps and found Elijah in his study at the top of the stairs.

"Red haired girl. Green jacket. Have you seen her?"

Elijah looked up from a book and shrugged, smiling a little. "Only if I look very quickly. And no, not today."

Klaus shook his head in frustration. Finally, after stalking through the upstairs no sign of the little trickster, he gave up. Choosing a book from Elijah's collection, he went back downstairs. When he had settled into a window seat, he caught her scent again around a corner. Klaus could move very quickly, and did. And still there was no one there when he got around the corner. _What the...? She could move as fast as he could?_

After more than an hour of peace, he heard the back door slam and felt compelled to try once more to get a second glimpse of this elusive girl. He slung the door open and saw her half way across the yard, making her way through the snow. He stopped long enough to close the door quietly behind him and turned back to find her gone again. Her trail had stopped in the crisp ice covered snow as well. _What exactly was this girl?_

Klaus was now both annoyed and fascinated.

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Coming through the back door of Harper's farm house, Fern found herself effectively shocked to stillness by two blue eyes. For a second, she felt like a moth pinned to a board by two blue tacks. She was due for her lessons with Harper and had just had the door opened by the most beautiful man she had ever seen. And her tongue was stapled to the roof of her mouth. _Of course. Goddess, how humiliating. _

Other women could flirt. _Other women could speak._ Not Fern. Somewhere between her brain and her mouth there was a disconnect in the presence of strangers. And beautiful men.

_Oh dear Goddess, he was beautiful, too._ Tall and blonde, his hair pushed back from his face and lying in what might be waves. Those eyes were the color of a cloudless sunlit sky, just this side of heaven. She had only ever seen that color in nature. Not searching her face and waiting for a response to his greeting. Her face flamed as she tilted her head down and hid behind the blanket of red hair that was another plague on her existence along with her mute and wayward tongue.

He turned to close the door behind her and she had caught a pulsing wave of energy by its tail end and disappeared. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath as she disappeared, unconsciously dragging in the scent he carried. It took her a moment to place it. Rain. He smelled like a fresh rain. She still had her eyes closed when she materialized in Harper's office.

Harper was at her desk and never even turned around. "Good. You're here. You've been practicing using the pulses?" Fern nodded wordlessly and Harper still hadn't turned, but Fern knew Harper understood.

"Do it again. Go back downstairs. Fetch me a book or a pillow or something. You'll need to practice carrying objects, too."

Fern turned her eyes inside and caught another passing wave. Fern was an Earth witch. The soil, the land, pulsed with powerful currents of energy that moved in random waves under the surface of the earth. Fern could harness these waves and make their strength her own. Her newest lesson from Harper was to use them to travel, focusing to find the wave going in the direction she needed, grab on and let go in the place she wanted to go. She had ended up in some interesting places doing this. A smile came and went across her face as she thought of the family in Texas she had accidentally interrupted eating dinner in their backyard. They had been surprised and then kind when she just appeared at the edge of their picnic blanket. She lived in Utah and had hung on a little too long. Getting home had proved a challenge too.

She released the power and found herself in the dining room downstairs. She smelled rain. Unable to stop herself, she peeked around the corner and found Blue Eyes reading a book in the window seat. He went still and she snatched up a magazine and disappeared again.

Depositing it on Harper's desk, she smiled, satisfied with herself.

Harper tilted her dark eyes up and smiled at Fern. "Good."

Fern itched to ask who Blue Eyes was, but couldn't bring herself to ask. Harper was one of the few people she could talk to, but the ache in the pit of her stomach wasn't something she could easily overcome. That ache was new. And it fluttered to life when she thought of asking about him.

Harper had swiveled in her chair and was studying her face. Something of Fern's thoughts must've been plain on her face, because her teacher's dark eyes narrowed with concern.

"Did Klaus frighten you?"

_Klaus. His name was Klaus._ And Harper thought Fern would believe he was frightening. _Really?_ Wordlessly, Fern shook her head, biting her lip behind the curtain of dark red hair. Frighten wasn't exactly the word. Fascinate, maybe.

Not that it would ever matter what Fern thought. She'd never be able to speak to him. People were her Achilles' heel. Fern had as much strength as the earth could supply, and not enough to overcome the mortifying paralysis that being around most people caused.

_**Author's note:**_

_**Someone challenged me by pointing out that no author ever uses a painfully shy character as their romantic lead. Challenge accepted. I have a friend who suffered from this very situation when she was a teenager. I'm a big mouth, and was as a fellow teenager. Like Klaus, she intrigued me. So I hasseled her until she talked to me. More than twenty years later, we're still friends. She grew to overcome her shyness to some degree and became an airline pilot captain. She's one of my heroes. **_

_**Here's where I say that I own no part of the Vampire Diaries or its characters. I am not affiliated with its writers or producers in anyway and this work of fiction is displayed here strictly for entertainment purposes.**_

_**I do, however, retain all rights to original characters contained here. By their presence here, I do not give up any rights as their creator and expect that they are mine in all ways. ** _


	2. Chapter 2

Fae, Fae Away

Chapter 2

Klaus watched quietly for two more days for the red haired girl to reappear. He argued with Harper when he got the chance and visited with his brother, who was entirely content in this strange place. _How very odd._

On the third day, again around mid-morning, there was a quiet tap at the door and no one else around, just as before. He opened the door, finding the lovely green eyes watching him warily. He smiled broadly as she stepped in. "Good morning." She said nothing and by the time he had closed the door behind her and turned back, she was gone….again. This time his blue eyes turned hard and narrowed to slits. _No one made a fool of him._

This time, as she left Harper's house a couple of hours later, he was waiting for her. He stood at the back step and joined her as she began loose limbed strides, seeming intent on moving silently away. She looked up at him as he fell in step, but kept her expressions hidden behind her curtain of smooth red hair and the hood from her green jacket.

"Do I frighten you?" He asked it casually, rather than an introduction, focusing his efforts and eyes on matching her step for step. It was against all the manners instilled in him to be so blunt, but she disappeared too quickly and too often. He wanted to know, so he would ask before she left again and took that sweet pine scent of hers with her.

She skidded to a halt on the crusty snow at the question. Her hands were in her coat and she turned to face him for the first time. "Do you want to?" Her voice was quietly musical. High and sweet. He had stopped too and they were looking warily at one another, face to face for the first time.

He shrugged and shook his head. "No."

She flushed as she met his eyes, blood coloring her cheeks like slash marks under her skin. Her gaze skittered away, to hands that folded and unfolded together in front of her. _She was nervous_. He could easily smell fear and only found her pine scent perfuming the air around her, so she was not, in fact, afraid of him. His mind twisted the bits of information he was gathering around like puzzle bits, trying to assemble an image that made sense of her.

She opened her mouth as if she would say something and said nothing at all the first time. The next time she tried, she met his eyes, hers darkened with distress. Finally, appearing to force the words out, she said, "I'm not very…" She swallowed, reddening some more before she went on. "I'm not very _good_ with people."

He was already still and quiet, waiting for her. Now his body locked in surprise, though, at her words. Rude, spirited, beautiful…these things he could accept as the core of this small person. He had not anticipated this shyness to be at the center of her silence. _She struggled to speak to people_. _A surprise. Very little ever surprised him anymore. _

As a child he had faced the same problem, overcoming it as his harsh upbringing and a harsh father beat it out of him. This young girl had yet to overcome hers, but he could understand her now, at least. And what was left of his long shriveled his heart went out to her. Her silent disappearances, although he couldn't figure how she had done them yet, made sense now.

He pushed a hand at her between them, in greeting. "I'm Klaus." She stared at it for only half a breath before hers came up to take it. The tingle that ran up his arm had him cocking his head to one side, watching her closely. _And what have we here? _ He wondered, as his smile grew a little wider.

She drew a deep breath before she answered him, forcing a weak smile that didn't reach her green eyes. "I'm Fern."

He blinked. _Fern. What a strange name. A pixie name. No….not pixies. Faeries, from the stories when he was a child._

He released her hand, rubbing away the tingle on his thigh as he spoke again. "Well, Fern, if you're not good with people, what are you good with?" He kept his tone low and serious, but her green eyes snapped up to meet his, asking if he was mocking her, which he was not. He raised a brow, telling her he really did expect an answer. When he had suffered with this awkwardness, there was always somewhere very specific that he would rather be, somewhere that felt safe. He was asking her what her safe place was. Her eyes moved ruthlessly over his face before she seemed to accept that he really did want to know.

She swung a small hand wide, indicating the gathering of trees that marked the beginning of the forest several hundred yards away. "Here." Her throat seemed to close on the word with some great emotion as her eyes moved over the landscape and back to him, asking if he understood without words. She must've seen the questions, because she expounded, a little more easily. "The land, the trees. The wild things." Her dark pink lips turned for the first time up into a smile. "Just….here." The bright green eyes sparkled at him as they echoed her smile and he found himself mirroring it. _Wild things…..something he would work with. _

He smiled, taking a step back. "It was very nice to meet you, Fern." He watched her blow a breath out slowly, her shoulders relaxing in what he would guess was relief as he turned purposefully back toward the house. He stopped once, after a couple of steps and turned to find her gone again, her tracks in the snow ending where the two of them had stood together.

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It was two more days before Klaus saw Fern again. Renewed purpose drove him forward. He saw her enter the house from the some distance off. He was crouched and ready when she left again two hours later. She wore the green coat again, as he had seen before and brown boots. Her shoulders were hunched against the wind that kicked up, following her progress across the white landscape.

He moved across the melting snow as she took her leave, picking her way across the yard. She had not noticed him and he got to see first-hand the way that she travelled so quickly. She took a step and would disappear completely, reappearing yards away but making the motion look fluid, like a loping run with very long strides. He watched her this way from some underbrush as she easily crossed the clearing and made for the forest entrance humming quietly to herself.

With a bounding run, he followed when Fern was well out of sight. Klaus had a secret that made him one of a kind. He was a vampire, like his brother. But he was also a werewolf by birth. It was a birthright long begrudged him by a mother that had never really understood. He had recently broken her binding spell and embraced the power that went with his hybrid status. But until now, he had not had the opportunity to fully embrace the wolf itself and all that went with it. His curiosity about Fern offered him that opportunity. As a Were, he knew all about "wild things". His lips pulled back from his muzzle in a wolfy grin as he picked up her sharp scent and followed her easily into a forest that was teeming with life, tracks or no tracks.

A warm front had begun to melt the frozen layers over the ground and the trees, bringing wildlife out from their warm cover to feed as new green growth peaked out from under the frozen camouflage. He followed her scent as she moved rapidly across the forest floor and never gained sight of her with the rapid pace that she used. She covered miles very rapidly, appearing to stop and start as it suited her. And it appeared that she touched trees randomly as she passed, trailing her hands over them as she walked. _Strange._

Her trail headed up the side of a hill….one that would quickly become a mountain as the trail turned sharply upward and then leveled off again. With the sounds around him, a hum of rushing water got louder with each mile.

Her scent became very strong as he broke through some underbrush and found a clearing highlighted with sunlight and a pool of steaming water that ran down the mountain, slowing and pooling at the side of the hill. A twenty foot waterfall, still partially frozen, but rushing all the same, burst from the side of the hill and filled the deep pool. Steam rose from the pool's surface and he found her scent so strong he couldn't pinpoint where she was….and then he saw her.

Twenty feet up, at an outcropping of rock in the center of the falls is where she stood. She nearly blended away into the grays and whites around her in all of her pale glory. Her clothes were gone. She thought she was alone and he was moved to shocked stillness as she leapt out, her pale body a bow stretching upward as she sailed down. Her long hair became a mahogany cloud trailing behind her and silvery sparks of dust flew out in her wake, blending into the spray of the falls as she tipped in the last seconds of her descent and sliced cleanly into the waiting pool across from him. _She was glorious._

_ Some corner of his mind had known she would be._

He sat on his haunches watching her move like a fish through the water before heading toward the side where he was seated. She poked her head out of the steaming water, resting on her arms at the rocks that rimmed the pool all around.

Her hair smoothed away from her face and her pale skin glistening in the warm water, she blinked at him for the first time.

"Well, hello." Her high, musical voice was beautiful with a bit of volume that had been lacking the one time they had spoken before. She tipped her head to one side, watching him. He felt a jolt, a push into his mind and slammed up a mental barrier, stopping her progress.

"I haven't seen you before." She was looking him over closely. His knew his color to be a high, shining silver mixed with black in equal measure from nose to tail. He stood a hand higher than the tallest wolves and his plume of a dark tail was resting on the ground under him, where he sat as he watched her too. He scanned her with what he knew would appear to be intelligent blue eyes.

She drew in a deep breath as he blinked at her. "And _you are magnificent_." She breathed the words in hushed wonder as she rose from the water to stand, wet and unashamedly naked, leaning slightly to get a closer look at him. He echoed the sentiment back at her, his jaws opening in a toothy grin. _Magnificent, indeed. Yes, that was the word. She was the magnificent one. _


	3. Chapter 3

Fae, Fae Away

Chapter 3

**_Author's note: Updates have been a long time coming for this story. I haven't had to do that to my readers before, and I don't like it much. _**

**_My best excuse is that I've found myself caught in a cycle of (seemingly) endless revisions and submissions for the novel and my own brand of personal distraction. Life became very complicated. Wonderful. Beautiful. And complicated. But I woke a few days ago with Klaus on the brain and am relieved to find his fierce heart as fragile and compelling as it always was. I hope you think so too._**

Fern pushed a hand through her dark red hair, forcing it away from her face and wishing for the hundredth time for a ponytail holder. Steering the utility cart to the last room, she turned the key on the old, faded doorknob to wander into the now empty motel room. She had spent the last two years, since her mother's death, living and working at the small roadside motel that her friend Ezekiel Morrison owned. The work wasn't easy sometimes, but it was honest, which was important to Fern.

Zeke was tall, broad, dark and warmth itself to her…considering the thick dark fur he wore from time to time, particularly around full moons, the warmth part made her smile most of all. A friend of Leah's while she was growing up, he had become a friend, a father figure, a teacher and a werewolf bodyguard from time to time to young Fern. _Not that she needed a blasted bodyguard. _The last thought flashed through her mind as a single reddish eyebrow rose over bright green eyes in the bathroom mirror of the room she worked concisely to clean. _She could take care of herself, thankyouverymuch. _She grinned at her reflection for a second; pausing in her work, scrub brush in hand. Silvery power swirled around her reflected image, like bits of glitter in a snow globe that had been shaken by some unseen hand.

When Leah had lost her life to a rapid form of leukemia, brought on by years of practicing dark blood magic, Zeke had stepped in to take her under his wing. Fern had been just eighteen, and felt utterly lost at the time. The thought of her mother made her vision flicker and the sparks of power diffuse like puff seeds from a daffodil at the end of the season. _She missed Leah._ Fern had always called her Leah because her mother didn't like to be reminded that she was old enough to have a child.

Leah had not been the best mother, but she had been the only maternal figure that Fern had. Losing her to such an easily preventable thing made Fern's eyes mist even two years later. There was always a price for the type of power Leah had been so fond of wielding. Fern, by contrast, would walk firmly in the light, drawing power where it was offered and reflecting it back at every opportunity. Nature was balance, in all things and Fern was grateful for the rhythmic give and take of her Earth element. As she emptied herself, stores of strength filled her, making her a vessel more than anything. She had found her place in the forests for a hundred mile radius that included both Zeke's and Harper's homes.

_Wild things. _That was where she was most at home. She had used those words with the visitor at Harper's home only days before._ Klaus. _He was a vampire. She could see the dark glow around him, a dead giveaway for vampires to Fern.

Before her lessons, that dark radiating aura would've frightened her. But Harper had opened her eyes to the balance of nature even in this. There was a place in creation, even for predators. And honestly, he couldn't hurt Fern with the charm she wore even if he wanted to. A gift from Harper. Harper's Elijah had never made her feel the least bit threatened but Harper had made the charm for her as a gift anyway so that Fern would never be afraid in her teacher's home.

Fern reached across the mattress, replacing the sheets and making the bed as she admitted to herself that Harper was more than her teacher. She was a mentor, a friend and the closest Fern had ever come to a healthy maternal relationship. These were not things she would ever be able to say to Harper. Her quietness with others, even those she was closest to, was a plague that left so many things unspoken with people who mattered.

She worked to shrug off those thoughts and the distress they carried as she gathered her cart and headed back out the last room on her list to clean for the day. She had to push aside her feelings on the matter because there was little she could do about it. Fern managed to be closest to Zeke. But the connection she had with Zeke was more than something she could do with most people….all a matter of biology, really. For Harper, longing to unfasten her tongue from the roof of her mouth didn't make it happen for Fern. Somehow Harper understood her anyway at some level and Fern loved her for it all the more. That would have to be enough.

Showering and changing quickly, she turned on foot to make her way toward Harper's home, some fifty miles north of here. She drew in an icy breath and blew it back out again. She would see Klaus. _Why did that thought set fields of butterflies to flight in her abdomen?_ Seeing him wasn't going to accomplish much, except a reminder of the blue eyes and the handsome face. She couldn't speak to him. Not really. There would be no banter, flirting or easy teasing between them because her brain would shut down and leave her mute. _Humiliating. _

As she moved easily toward Harper's home, snatching at one energy pulse and releasing, only to grab onto another, she listed the things she would've asked him if she could. How old was he? What was his childhood like? His family? What drove a person like him with relatively eternal life? There was some undertone in him, in his eyes and his smile that seemed a little wild, a bit unpredictable. One would think that as quiet as she was, that idea of someone being unpredictable would be disconcerting at the least, but it wasn't. It was immensely attractive in the face of her very predictable life. So she would've asked what it was that made him unpredictable and what did he gain from it. She also would like to know why he would believe he frightened her, and did he frighten most people? Harper even believed that Fern would be afraid, almost seemed to think she _should_ be afraid of Klaus.

She reached the door to Harper's farm house and knocked as always. Harper complained usually when she had to answer. They both knew when Fern would arrive and Harper wanted her not to stand on formality, just to walk in. Fern never could get herself to do that. It always felt…..intrusive. If she went to a home that was not her own, she should treat it as she would the owner…with respect. Her brow crinkled as she considered that maybe Leah had taught her a valuable thing or two. Respect was one of those things. _Lessons learned the hard way ran the deepest._

The door was drawn open and Fern lost herself in blue eyes again. Every connection in her brain failed for a second, awareness searing the wiring and synapses that allowed thought to form. Blue eyes weren't a reminder of a clear sky today, but a warm blue pool of water that she longed to dive cleanly into without leaving a ripple on the surface.

She felt like she stood there forever, but it was probably only a fraction of a second. Certain he could see through to her soul with those eyes of his and knew exactly what she was feeling, she ducked her head and ran for dear life again. _Rotten coward. She was a rotten coward._

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Fern left Harper's after her lessons and could think of only one thing. The mountain pool. It was a deep cavernous water supply that brought warm, steaming water up in a wide natural hot tub. The mountain above the pool had started to melt with the warm snap of recent days and would be barreling down the mountain to join that pool with cool, fresh water. The effect became a misty, steamy wonder that would suit Fern perfectly today. It was cool, but the temperatures didn't affect her. She would get to dive into that deep blue pool of warmth and light just as she had dreamed for a wayward second at Harper's back door today. Perhaps then she would exorcise this bone deep awe she was struggling with when this Klaus person was around.

She removed her clothes because she was alone. Zeke had complained more than once about her appearance after extended time in the woods. The mess he hated always started with her getting her clothes wet first, so she would avoid the problem before it started. Naked was a natural state in the forest anyway. Humanity and all of its trappings were the intruders here.

Discarding her clothes in a neat pile, she moved up the rocks that made a nice pathway up the side of the falls. Creatures skittered in surprise as she moved, recognized her and went back to their comings and goings. She was really kin to all of them anyway, as her element allowed.

She reached the top of the rocks and looked down. The steam rose of the water as she had known it would. The sky reflected in the water that she could see through the steam. That was it. The precise shade of blue that met her in Klaus' eyes twinkled up at her from the surface of the pool. She took several steps back, broke into a loping run and thrust her body out fast and high across the water, bending upward at first as her power splashed around her as she had known it would. The breeze, the air around her whistled, forcing her hair back and joy settled into her soul. Cutting cleanly into the surface with a smile of satisfaction she stretched her arms wide below the water, pulling hard powerful strokes to swim down touching a partial flooring of the pool and then pushing hard toward the surface again. Stretching her lungs and body always made her feel better, stronger.

When Fern broke the surface, a new scent struck her. She wasn't alone anymore. She wasn't threatened, or afraid. The visitor was merely curious from what she could "feel" of him. Him….a male. Skimming the trees from the water's surface she found him. A wolf. Not uncommon in this area. But this one was alone and without the pack markings she had seen before. A marauder.

He was black and silver, dense fur bristling at her a little as she rose from the pool and resisted the urge to drop to a crouch and hug her knees just so he would stay. Another of Fern's gifts was that she could talk to animals. They sprang from the Earth, her element. At first, this had been a problem as she had been bombarded by a whole new world of personalities and issues. But that had faded and she found friends in the creatures she worked to protect. Wolves were a favorite of hers, probably because of Zeke and her easy connection with their highly intelligent minds. They were always very polite and eager even, to talk to her. And this wolf was bigger, broader even than Zeke, a werewolf.

She mumbled some wondering bit of nonsense at him, hoping he wouldn't lope away before they could talk and watched silvery blue eyes blink at her before the snout was pulled back in a nonthreatening toothy grin. _Oh, the tales this one could spin._ _She could just tell._ She reached out again, having connected only briefly hoping to keep him curious about her, at least until she could get a closer look. This time she moved a little closer after chattering meaninglessly at him while she pulled on her clothes.

"A marauder." She sat on the ground after she was dressed. He had watched her closely, and she felt him wondering why she would think him a marauder of all things. She answered him as if he had spoken.

"Because you are here alone and carry only your scent. You are not a pack wolf, so you must scavenge and have fought many battles." She pulled her legs up under her, her entire posture relaxed. She was being very careful not to alarm him. Fern wanted very much for him to stay. He was beautiful and she sensed a loneliness at his core that had driven him here even more powerfully than normal curiosity. She understood about loneliness. "Would you like to tell me about some of those battles, Sir Marauder?"


	4. Chapter 4

Fae, Fae Away

Chapter 4

_**Author's note: Much of what you will find below was published once before under another fanfic, written months ago. The story was written originally strictly from Klaus' perspective. I have edited where necessary in the places where Fern's character has changed and evolved. Introducing her perspective has opened avenues of growth and change for her that I had not seen before now. I believe that Klaus and Fern will grow better together, rather than apart…..no matter her personality faults or the crimes that have begun to trouble him for the first time. Together they are perfectly imperfect.**_

Klaus braced his front paws on the soft earth as he felt that gentle push of hers and slammed up the barrier he had used once already against her reach into his mind. It had only helped before to some small degree. She could hear his thoughts, at least partially and already began to understand him.

_Marauder. Someone who attacks another in search of gain. _He had been called much worse. And deserved the labels he had worn. Klaus freely admitted that all of them were true, even this "marauder" name she gave him. The morality of his actions over the centuries was not something he allowed himself to consider as a rule. But watching her green eyes twinkle with smiles for him, he felt his gut clench as he wondered if her smile would fade if she had even a clue of all he had done.

"No stories of your conquests?" She smiled, wrapping her arms around her knees. "I would say you are a very strange wolf, then, sir." Her words were rich with warm and friendly laughter. He only cocked his head to one side, ears high. The warmth of her laughter spread like a canvas across the floor of the forest. He began to see why he could catch her scent coming from all directions. Her power was woven into every tree root, every tuft of new grass and the glistening water, even the steam that rose up behind her. Fern permeated this place, like a faerie in her woods.

"Faeries." She laughed, long and high, catching his thought before he could catch it himself and tuck it back behind his eyes. He would have to be careful what he thought around her, he could see that already. She had tipped back on her tailbone with the laughter. "No, no, my new friend. I'm not a faerie." She wrapped her arms again around her knees, her manner easy and calm with him now, a contrast to what he had seen in the field when she had labored to speak with him. She had been honest.

As a man, she struggled to speak to him. As a wolf, she welcomed him with easy warmth and humor. "I will make a deal with you, Marauder. I will tell you what I am, if you will tell me what you are." She held a single hand out to him, something she had not done before. The twenty feet between them seemed not nearly broad enough an expanse suddenly. He stood, turning back toward the underbrush, indicating his indecision about whether he should go before looking back at her again. He could not show her what he really was. Then she would be afraid again. Still standing, he cocked his ears at her, waiting.

She held her hand out for a moment more and then chuckled, closing it. "Fair enough. You can keep your secrets. You don't have to go. I won't try to take them from you. I promise." He sat again on his haunches, indicating he accepted those terms.

"Another offer." Her small hand stretched again and he saw the silvery dust dancing in the sunlight around it. "I will tell you what I am if you let me touch you. I just want to feel your fur. As I said before, you are magnificent." Her voice had dropped to a musical croon of longing and he found he couldn't deny her. He took tentative steps in her direction and stopped again, watching closely, his nose high in the air for any change in her scent when he finally stopped in arms reach.

A real smile lit her face, her eyes and the glade around them fairly hummed, echoing her joy. Her green eyes now glowed like fresh moss in the morning sun. She gasped under her breath as her small hand moved tentatively across his broad back. His skin rippled under her movements as he sat. He actually closed his eyes under her hand as she ran one down his back and to his tail. She made something behind his breastbone ache as she gushed over him, telling him quietly how beautiful he was, her hands across him, leaving no patch of fur on his back or legs unexplored.

She had moved close, her leg against his side, running her dainty hands along his back while Klaus tried not to lose himself in the sensations she aroused. He held his long body still, careful and gentle with her.

His chest expanded with pride at her appreciation of the wolf he had worked so hard for so many centuries to attain. He was proud of what he was. _Little Fern thought he was beautiful. _He saw it in her eyes, felt it in her hands, heard it in the hushed wonder of her voice as she gushed over him.

After a few moments, he turned and met her eyes, his blue eyes blinking at her pointedly. She grinned swiftly in answer.

"Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I am a terra witch, my new friend." She took a handful of earth from the ground and held it out to him on her flat palm. It turned to a silvery dust and spread as she blew lightly across the palm. "I draw power from the earth itself."

Klaus had seen earth witches before, but never anything like her. He stayed there, in the glade with her until the sun started to set and she told him sadly that she had to go, but hoped to meet him again someday very soon. He blinked wide eyes at her, forced to unfamiliar silence by the wolf he wore, but he would've assured her she would see him again if he could. He had no doubt about that.

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When Klaus found Fern again, it was days later and his first glimpses of her had him gasping roughly in horror. She stood at the top of an evergreen tree that was easily fifty feet high. She was in the uppermost branches, perched there and hanging on with one hand, the other stretched out to the wind. The breeze, at that height, was more like a gale and had the entire tree swayed in a creaky dance that terrified him for her safety.

Her hair was stretched out behind her, like a dark red flag, shaking in the winds that buffeted the trees. Her mouth was open and a high song, musical and sweet, flowed out over the trees as she wove her spells into the winds. A storm was far off and approaching slowly. It seemed that she sang its welcome.

He had struggled to pinpoint where she was because her scent was so strong and absolutely everywhere. Klaus had expected around every turn to find her. That had gone on for miles. Now he understood why. Fern seemed to be laying a layer of power across the trees and the ground as the storm approached.

He was up on his hind legs under the tree leaning on the trunk and calling his concern sharply to her, a high howl that struggled to overcome the sounds of the rushing winds. It took a while like that to get her attention, but finally she heard, starting a swinging descent that had him breathless again. _Witches were human, weren't they? Human equals mortal. Good heavens, was the woman suicidal or insane?_

Somewhere around half way down, she stopped, perching on a large branch to lean over sharply and call to him. "Hello, again, Marauder!" She shifted on the branch, making the whole thing shudder a little under her and starting him howling his frustration at her. "What's wrong?" She shook the branch under her purposely this time at him and he came back at her with a series of angry rumbling growls loud enough for her to hear from twenty five feet up.

She laughed, tipping her head back and letting the joy ripple outward. "Oh, of course. I think I understand. You're worried about me. Awwww…." She tipped her head down at him, from the distance and smiled, calling down, "Aren't you sweet?" With that she scooted to the edge of the branch and pushed off like a child hopping off of a kitchen chair. She came down the remaining twenty five feet like an arrow aimed at the ground, her feet together her arms above her head as she fell cleanly between the branches.

Klaus had gone still with shock, waiting in silent dread for the impending impact and her certain death. He didn't have time to think or respond as she fell. But rather than the suicidal wench he thought she must be, he realized she was mischief itself…teasing him. Fern stopped two feet above the floor of the forest, under the tree, holding her position in midair.

His jaws hung open at her, with the shock of it and she laughed, a light tinkling sound that reminded him of a wind chime. "Terra witch. Remember? Gravity is an earthly force." She was smiling broadly at him as she stepped down onto the bed of pine needles under the tree and he shook his head at her, furious and frustrated and charmed all at once.

She wore a green dress that skimmed to just above her knees and brown sandals, despite the temperatures that had been dropping again after the short warm spell. Her skin was flushed from the wind and her play. The pink tones under her skin made her green eyes stand out in contrast. Her hair was mussed from the wind and wild, still blowing in all directions, it seemed. _She was beautiful. Infuriatingly beautiful._

Without preamble, she sat down beside him on the pine needles and wrapped her arms around his back and chest. "I'm sorry." She said the words, but she continued to chuckle. "I'm terrible. Terrifying my new friend with my games." She swung around, meeting his blue eyes with her now earnest green ones. "I haven't fallen since I was old enough to toddle. I came to my powers very early and gravity was the first thing I mastered. I shouldn't tease. Will you forgive me?" He grumbled at her again for a moment, the sound emerging as a rumbling growl from his chest, but she grinned, hearing the spirit of the noise, rather than any threat.

Klaus couldn't stay angry with her when she told him quietly, arm still around his back, "I'm glad you came. I hoped I would see you again." _She had missed him._ The thought sang a sweet song in his veins.

He sat on his haunches beside her, folding his paws and settling onto them. He wasn't hungry. He had killed a deer earlier, along the paths and met that need. It wasn't human, but it answered his wolf appetites. He was comfortable now, having found her. Idly, he thought of the song she was singing from the tree and wondered for a moment what it was that she sang, and why.

She turned, at his thoughts, her eyes moving over his face. Her own expression thoughtful, she spoke. "You are so careful with your thoughts and then some of them come at me swift as arrows before you can stop them. Should I answer you? I don't mind." He tipped his head forward in encouragement and she smiled.

"Everything has a spirit that beats around inside it. As a predator, I know you already know some of this, feeling the spirit of your kills moving away as you feed." She nodded at him. "But there is more than just the spirits of animals. The rocks, the trees, the sky breathe with life and vitality, too. When the storms come, they carry tremendous power. I was casting a spell that will help the land and the trees store that power and the moisture the clouds carry for the dry seasons that will come." She shrugged, her eyes still thoughtful as she said, "I suppose you could say I'm one of many caretakers here."

He watched her lean back, pulling her knees up and tucking her dress under her. "There is one other thing I heard you thinking earlier, when I was coming down from the tree. You thought I was a "suicidal wench"." Fern turned and studied him as he refused to return this gaze. "Decidedly human. And British maybe?" He closed his eyes against the accusation, feigning disinterest. His head was propped on his crossed paws and he had gone very still as she spoke.

"I know you're a Were." His great head came up at that, swinging around to look at her. "I promised not to steal your secrets. But this was unintentional. The moment I touched you, I knew." She shrugged broadly, her whole body echoing her discomfort. "And considering you had just seen me naked, I couldn't bring myself to apologize for invading your privacy." He swung his head away again, still lying quietly beside her and considering the implications.

She was uncomfortable with people. She knew now that he was more than just a wolf. He wasn't exactly human, but close enough to make her stutter rather than smile. Her warmth would be washed away in discomfort again. He didn't want for this to change. The thought of her being afraid of him again set up a powerful ache behind his breastbone. As a wolf, his heart stuttered in his chest, part of the form. It was an unfamiliar sensation, this fluttering in at his core.

He turned back, meeting her eyes with his own. _Are you afraid of me?_ He thought it directly at her. It was an echo of their first conversation.

But rather than the discomfort she had shown before, she laughed this time at the question. She turned her head high, affecting dignity with a broad smile. "I will have you know, Marauder, that some of my best friends are werewolves."

He narrowed his blue eyes at her then, confused. She caught the direction of his thoughts immediately. The contradiction confused him. She was comfortable with Weres, but afraid of people?

"I see that you have seen me with people…" Her hands came to her lap, she was moving them as she had before. She wrung them for a moment before she seemed to notice his interest and stopped. "Yes. They make me feel uncertain." She was silent for a moment more while she collected her thoughts and turned her whole body toward him before she spoke again, making him feel that she was about to impart something important to her.

"People can be kind and honest. They can also be cruel and self-serving. Not so long ago I would've said that _all people are untrustworthy_. Experience has been a harsh teacher. But my friend Zeke worries about me and has helped me see that just isn't true. It's just a matter of separating the wheat from the chaff. There are people out there worth knowing, and I am finding them slowly, but I still struggle to trust….anyone. My ability to distinguish the wheat and the chaff troubles me. My lack of faith in my judgment on the matter troubles me more." She reached out a hand and ran it along one of his ears.

She motioned to his long wolf form with one small hand as she went on, "As an earth witch, I can connect with all of the life that comes from the earth, including you." He felt the push behind his eyes that he had felt the first time they met. "That," she motioned with her hand at his forehead, "establishes a connection as long as we'll both allow it. I feel the direction of your thoughts; the person you are at heart, like I can feel the trees and the sky." She paused, picking up a fallen pine needle as she gathered her thoughts. "I didn't push to see who you are because I promised not to. Weres dance a fine line between wildness and civility. I understand them better than any other people I know."

Fern placed a small, pine scented hand under his jaw and turned him to meet her eyes. He had drifted away, listening quietly as she explained. "For this reason, Maruauder, I'm relieved that you are what you are. Certainly not afraid. And I like your company very much."

A scent caught his nose as she finished speaking and he went very still, his eyes searching the underbrush around them. A predator. He rose, moving to follow the scent when a sleek black form leapt from the trees behind them. The bastard had used the other trees as cover to get close and was intent on an attack on Fern from behind, paws at her back.

To give her credit, she tucked and rolled skillfully forcing one small fist up and striking back as silver sparks flew. Her defensive attack on the enormous intruder had a quiet booming power of silvery spray that surprised him. It was another wolf, black, a hair shorter than him. And Klaus' wolf was enormous. Fern rolled to her back, trying to avoid the attack but it had successfully pinned her to the ground, snarling furiously at her throat.

Klaus was overwhelmed with the scent of the stranger and the scuffle that ended with a threat to Fern. In a single beat of his unfamiliar heart, fury rolled over him like a stampede that shook him soundly, destroying any civility she might've given him credit for. He had one thought, to absolutely obliterate anything or anyone that would hurt Fern. A bounding leap and he was all four feet in the air aimed like a spear at the attacker. Klaus' only thought was to separate the black wolf from his next breath.

Unfortunately, that was about as far as he got. He hung, suspended in midair a mere two feet from the back of the black wolf who stood over Fern so threateningly. Forced to stillness and silence, he heard her laughter.

The black monster was pinning her to the ground with all of his considerable weight and Fern was laughing. With a throaty chuckle, she leaned up to the nose that sat atop the snarling mouth and opened her mouth broadly, licking the end of the strange wolf's nose soundly once with her small, pink tongue. The wolf stopped snarling to sputter in frustration and Fern giggled harder.

Klaus wondered in frustration if _perhaps he Alice, and this was Wonderland rather than Utah…..nothing made any blasted sense in this strange place._


	5. Chapter 5

Fae, Fae Away, Chapter 5

**_Author's note:_**

**_Yes, it's been a long while since an update. My bad. My life took a major turn for the dramatic and resulted in a debilitating writer's block. Can I tell you honestly that truth is stranger than fiction? I should write a book just about what I've been through over the last few months….but no one would believe it. But I'm back again, feeling the restless burn to write and harassed by my muse to do what I love. (Wow. I love him, but he really can be SO annoying. This waking me at 2AM with ideas has GOT to stop. Seriously. A little decorum, sir. __ ) So, anyway, here we go._**

Klaus' anger tore through him like a whirlwind, but ended in a futile rumble in his chest. Whatever held him here took away even his ability to snarl and fury at his opponent. He was suspended a scant few feet over the back of the black wolf that had attacked Fern without warning or provocation. He watched, his eyes wide, as Fern rose and gathered the other wolf that had nearly killed her into a warm, loving embrace. The inconsistency of it made him burn. Whatever spell held him here, when it was gone, he would tear the other wolf to pieces. There was no threat here to Fern, evidently, but Klaus would still tear him apart, just on principle.

Klaus was not like his brother Elijah. Elijah looked at the ending of lives as a shameful thing that resulted only in waste. Those that his brother had killed wore on Elijah's vastly overblown conscience. Elijah longed for Klaus to join him in some undefined quest for redemption…but redemption to whom, exactly? And to what end? The whole concept was foreign to Klaus and the conversation between the two of them on the subject always ended in angry words. Elijah, always the reasonable one, beat against his nature like a bird in a cage. By contrast, Klaus, always the rebel, embraced what he was with his whole heart, finding in it the freedom of a bird in flight.

Klaus looked back on the lives he had taken over the span of his considerable lifetime as unavoidable damage. They were bricks in a wall that stood between Klaus and his goal. What man would not demolish a wall that served only as an obstacle? _Klaus did what was necessary._ Sometimes he didn't particularly like what was required of him, but he did it just the same. Where Elijah was a romantic, Klaus was practical. There had been times when killing became a chore, and often it was an unpleasant one. Unpleasant or not, Klaus did what was necessary to achieve his ends.

Honestly he had been around long enough to know the true potential of most human lives. He believed firmly that shearing off a few years was more a kindness than anything. No, the victim never did see it that way, but he had watched humans rot with old age too often, swallowed whole in pain and sickness. Any human, given the chance, would avoid age and infirmity at almost any cost. He just took the choice away from them, and only when he felt he had to.

For Klaus, respect and loyalty were the only real elements in relationships. They were a primal need for him for reasons he couldn't name. This open and warm affection he was forced to watch Fern gifting her attacker with was almost more than he could bear. Images of the black wolf and his destruction danced behind Klaus' eyes.

He watched Fern move away from the wolf after a minute and her gaze strayed to him, still frozen and suspended in mid-air.

Fern wiggled and rolled, freeing herself from Zeke's weight and moving gracefully to her knees to tuck her face into thick black fur, stifling more giggles because he was angry. She wrapped her arms around the black wolf that had just tried to take her head off.

_You were no more prepared for that a fawn that hasn't found its legs. Ze_ke's familiar deep voice was filling her head as he growled his disgust at her. _Months, NO YEARS of training and I take you down in two shakes, pup. _He shook his big head at her, his legs stiff in anger, the fur of his back stiff and on end with the tension._ Distracted. I expected better of you, girl. You are too easily distracted!_

He meant the Marauder, her new friend. Yes, she should've caught Zeke's scent long before he would've been able to attack. Normally these mock attacks ended quite differently. But she had been caught up in her conversation and for the first time in a long time oblivious to what was around her. Zeke was right. A dangerous mistake, but pride would keep her from admitting that to Zeke too easily.

Remembering the blue eyed Were, Fern swung around wondering what her new friend would be thinking of the strange show she and Zeke had just given him.

One glance up and behind the black wolf let her see for the first time that the silvery wolf was helplessly frozen in the air above them both. Marauder's murderous intent was clearly illustrated by the tension in his massive form and precision of the halted leap. Violence lit the fire behind blue eyes that were the only thing still mobile. _He was in the grip of Harper's powerful anti-violence spell and confused fury rolled off of him in waves. _

Fern was bombarded with answering emotions. Marauder had been intent on killing her attacker. He would've fought to protect her. That simple realization brought a myriad of sensations through her quiet heart. Gratefulness, amazement, and wonder only began the list. Only Zeke had ever seen enough value in her to fight for her. Not even her mother, at her strongest, had ever really stood between Fern and anything resembling a threat. The simple truth of this was what drove Zeke's need to teach Fern learn to protect herself. He liked to say that even old wolves eventually died and he wouldn't leave her defenseless. The world that Zeke and Fern lived in was a violent, unforgiving place where only the strongest and the smartest survived.

By contrast, Marauder was a new friend who was willing to fight and to possibly die in to protect her._ In her small world, that brand of protective instinct was built with years of closeness and earned trust. And yet there he was, trapped by a spell that prevented violence between mythical creatures and triggered by murderous intent._

She silenced Zeke's mental tirade at her inept reaction times with a single hand held up. Gesturing above him, she watched Zeke's dark eyes take in and process the scene.

She met his dark eyes frankly. "Go home. I'll meet you there later and you can give me a proper tongue lashing. I have a friend that needs me right now. Please."

Zeke turned with a dark grumble and disappeared into the underbrush that he had slipped out of. She had no doubt he would be giving her hell later, but he honored her request. The "please" was a signal between them that she needed space and he honored it grudgingly.

With Zeke gone, Fern eyed her suspended friend warily. He was still angry, his blue eyes still wild. Until he calmed, the spell would hold him fast. She moved to the space he would've landed, had his attack on Zeke been successful and sank to the pine needles, wrapping her arms around her knees. Her eyes moved over him silently before she spoke, her tone as quiet and soothing as she could make it.

"It's a spell. It prevents violence between mythical species for a fifty mile radius. A powerful friend of mine cast it, hoping to end violence near her home and mine." For once he didn't think to stop her from seeing clearly what he was thinking. His mind was a chaos fueled by a powerful anger. Images of the black wolf and the attack, from his perspective, danced behind his eyes. He had believed she would be killed and thought only of her safety.

"Yes. You would've killed him." Fern cast her eyes from him, looking for something else to focus on as she tried to explain and calm him. She reached and plucked a thin blade of grass from the ground and shredded it, wishing for the right words. "I am grateful for the thought and your efforts, Marauder." She felt a flush of embarrassed pleasure rise under her skin, but she met his eyes anyway. Trying to make him understand, she went on. "But I am also grateful for the spell that stopped you."

She nodded in the direction Zeke had disappeared into. "I told you that some of my favorite people are Weres. He's one of them." Confusion flickered across blue eyes and she smiled. "He trains me to defend myself and he was very disappointed just now with how far he got in that attack." She shrugged. "He accused me of letting you distract me."

"I didn't know he was back." She went on. "He was supposed to be gone for a while so I wasn't aware I should even have my guard up. He would say that's no excuse, but that's what I was getting a brow beating for." She had stopped looking at him, speaking quickly in her quiet, self-defensive tone. "He's important to me." She shrugged a little, looking self-conscious. "So you killing him is really not a good thing…."

Another stray thought struck her between the eyes from him, pulling Fern up in distress to her knees. "No. I won't leave you. Whether you like it or not." His anger roared again. This time she saw that it was tinged with indignation. "I'm sorry that our game caught you in this spell. I can see that dignity is important to you." She said the words soothingly, moving close, but not touching him. "But if another predator found you this way, you would be an easy mark. I will stay until you are calm and then the spell will release you."

She floundered for a minute, wondering at a subject that would distract him from his anger and embarrassment. Another stray thought from the silvery wolf and she knew what she would tell him about. He was wondering at Zeke and their closeness. So she would explain.

She moved again, to just below him and sat comfortably on a soft tuft of grass. "That's an easy question to answer." She smiled sadly up at him. "My mother was also a witch. I don't know who my father was." She twisted her hands in her lap until she realized what she was doing and stopped herself. "Zeke was my caregiver. My mother's friend. But she had other friends who came. Men. They would stay in our home…." Her voice trailed off as she gathered another hand full of pine needles to tear to bits. "Sometimes their interest strayed from my mother to me while she slept. Zeke always protected me."

Fern was lost in memories and missed the point of telling him what she did. She looked up, after a moment to find that he had dropped soundlessly to the forest floor. _Marauder was free again. _ Somehow she had calmed him and the spell's grip had released him.

"Oh, thank goodness." She wrapped him in her arms just as she had the black wolf and sank her face into thick silver fur.


	6. Chapter 6

Fae, Fae Away

Chapter 6

Klaus woke to a sweetly familiar voice in his head. He was stretched out across the bed he used in Harper's home and was, as always, naked. _Marauder._ It was Fern, saying his name. His first thought was that it was a dream, but he opened his eyes and heard it again, this time louder and more urgent in his skull. _Marauder?_

He answered her aloud, into the empty room, his voice echoing the urgency in hers. "Fern?"

Her melodic voice was tight with strain. _There's a fire. In the forest. I can't reach any of the other Weres. They're too far away. Thank the Goddess you can hear me. We need help, as we're shorted handed without them. It's not really your problem but…_

He interrupted her with a firm "On my way." which earned him a quietly echoing _Thank you_.

Klaus focused on the connection he and Fern shared because of his Were status. It really was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He reached out and was able to center easily on her location, some thirty miles north.

Bounding down the back stairs and across the soft grass of the back yard, as Klaus broke into a full speed run, two things struck him. First, it was spring and hardly the dry season when forest fires would usually be a problem in this kind of terrain. Second, he was still naked, having not stopped to think about his clothes, or the lack of them for the sheer urgency in Fern's call. With a wicked grin, he decided as a wolf he wouldn't need clothes anyway, but he set aside the impulse to transform to the wolf and cover himself. His vampire speed could reach little Fern much faster than the efforts of four legs ever could. So he ran, naked. Elijah would've fallen backward out of that large leather chair he was so fond of laughing at him if he knew, but Klaus kept moving with the speed that a thousand years and nearly unlimited strength offered him.

Approaching, he watched the smoke billowing out of what should've been young, green trees and into the night sky, obscuring the stars and the moon. The smoke reached high, miles high and the heat from the fire was moving fast.

Klaus lunged forward as he ran, landing on his hands, which were now paws. He was getting good at transforming quickly and he couldn't allow Fern to catch a glimpse of him in his current state. Raising a much more powerful nose to the wind, he picked out her pine scent among the smoke and a handful of scents he didn't recognize at all. He picked his way around the edges of the fire, watching it warily, as his wolf senses seemed to require.

He found her in a clearing with her hands in the air. A silvery plume of immense power was moving from her, at the trees and she seemed to be trying to contain what was, from this angle, an absolutely roaring forest fire. It stretched and yawned like a voracious, living thing, consuming as many trees as it could, snapping and snarling at him when he got too close to the edges of her containment efforts. Klaus' lope in her direction stopped short when he realized she was not alone.

Someone stood next to her, his hands also out cast, but in the opposite direction – allowing him to see Klaus' approach where Fern did not. As Klaus stopped short, the other person stopped short to, distracted from his work with his nose in the air, catching Klaus' scent.

Her companion was tall, very tall. Klaus estimated that he stood over seven feet and was both lean and strong. He had dark hair, pulled back and caught in a series of foreign looking braids that extended down his back and across a quiver and wicked looking longbow that crossed at his chest and his back. No sooner had Klaus spotted the weapon than it was trained on him, the male's efforts forgotten in the deadly purpose of halting Klaus' silent approach.

As Klaus drew closer, he saw that the man wore clothes the colors of the forest, in greens and browns consisting of a long tunic and loose pants. His longbow was skillfully knocked with an arrow aimed straight at where Klaus' wolf heart beat in his chest. Knowing no fear, Klaus succumed to curiousity instead as he cocked his large, silvery head to one side to study this newcomer.

On close inspection, Klaus saw that the man's ears were both thin and tall. They met in an arching point, fitted closely beneath the thick, dark hair and strangely twisted braids. His face was smooth and pale. His features carried a cool symmetry that couldn't be denied. And dimly Klaus had to admit that the stranger would be considered handsome by some women, beautiful by others. His hands were skillful with the weapon and his expression one of sure purpose and absolute serenity. He intended to kill Klaus and had no doubt he could do it.

The simple and absolute confidence that he read in his apparent enemy's expression made Klaus flash a wolfy smile as he waited. The stranger mirrored the smile. Klaus was overjoyed. _A challenge. How wonderful._

Klaus watched the arrow loose at the same moment he heard Fern's horrified call of "Vyn, NO!"

The hybrid strength and speed he had fought centuries to call his own allowed him to see the missile as it left the longbow, its aim sure and sound. Fortunately, the speed of its approach, although surprising, was still not enough. The arrow moved through the span of twenty yards between the two of them with a whistling, deadly path.

But Klaus' speed allowed a leap forward, and change of direction swiftly enough to avoid the deadly weapon. He stopped again a scant few feet from his attacker so quickly he knew he would appear to have disappeared from the distant space he had occupied and rematerialize in the new, more threatening spot.

He had to give his unnamed enemy credit. Klaus was genuinely surprised to find that the stranger already had a new arrow knocked and ready to use, but his dark, winged brows were lifted high in surprise that his first effort had missed the intended target. Evidently he was unaccustomed to missing. His first arrow made a futile thwacking sound in the soil where Klaus had stood a fraction of a second before. Klaus moved much faster than other Weres. _The stranger was finding he didn't make such an easy mark after all._

Raised up on hind legs, at close proximity, Klaus opened his jaws wide and made to lunge for the stranger's throat. Already his opponent had discarded the bow and brought a wicked silver knife, the length of one of Klaus' legs from beneath some covering he had not noticed and was crouched, ready for the battle to move to closer, more personal struggles.

"Stop!" Fern yelled, plunging between the two of them in her quiet version of fury. "We are not enemies here." She turned to the stranger, pointing at Klaus. "This is Marauder. He is here to help us. I called him."

She turned to Klaus angrily. "This is Vyn. He is a woodland elve and _he is helping_, _just as you will be helping. _ SO STOP TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER, ALREADY. We have _actual work_ to do." She turned her back on them then, moving back to maintain again the shield of silver power that was still protecting the trees that had not yet been consumed by the raging flames.

Vyn eyed him warily, his eyes shifting in color from dark brown to blue and back to brown again in confusion. The elven man saw an enemy in Klaus, although Klaus thought he didn't understand why he should see an enemy in a mere Were. It made Klaus grin wolfily again because he would never be a "mere" anything.

With a dismissive shrug, Vyn turned back and cast his hands again to the skies, with dark power flickering upward at some target. Klaus saw for the first time the focus of the elve's efforts before he had aimed his weapons at Klaus.

A large red dragon, with swirling purple eyes hung suspended twenty feet over the clearing in what appeared to be a stasis of some sort. The wings of the thing were fully expanded and reached a good sixty feet across. The armor it wore over its massive form was red and covered in vicious looking spikes from nose to tail along a spine that must've been another sixty feet in length. Its claws, each easily five feet long, were extended and aimed at the elven man called Vyn in what must've been an halted attack, like the one he had made against her friend Zeke only a few days before. Vyn seemed to be adding power to the stasis to hold the massive beast who blew a scorching, smoky breath out its nostrils in frustration at the tall stranger halting its progress.

It didnt take much deduction to realize that the dragon was the source of the out of control fire behind them. Klaus' chest drew wide and he blew out a breath slowly in wonder. A dragon. A dragon, a little over half the size and breadth of a football field that blew heat and smoke out its nose hung in the air over him. A seven foot elve worked to keep it helplessly still.

He had recently compared his visit here to Alice in Wonderland. But he didn't recall elves and dragons in Lewis Carroll's tale. Mad Hatters, yes. Mad queens, yes. But not dragons….or elves for that matter. Where the hell had he landed himself and how had he lived a thousand years never knowing such things existed?

As he struggled to accept what his eyes told him, distantly Klaus hoped there were faeries around here somewhere, too. He had longed to meet one of those since he was a child. Hopefully the wonderful and the horrifying would at least then strike a balance in his mind…..which he thought he might've lost, or left in his pants….the ones he was without at the moment.

_Alice in Wonderland indeed._ When he had wandered into Fern's world, he had stumbled across something much more terrible.


	7. Chapter 7

Fae, fae away

Chapter 7

From the corner of her eye, Fern watched Marauder take one last look at the scene the elven and the dragon made before he seemed to force himself in her direction, eyes frequently casting behind him as he came. At the moment, he wasn't shielding his thoughts to the degree he usually did and she could feel his mentally slack-jawed wonder.

When he reached her side, she couldn't help but comment, her smile feeling more like a grimace as she threw her concentration into the barriers she was holding around the flames. "I can see you've met Rummell."

The genuine shock blasted her from his thoughts. "Yes." She whispered back at him, or as close to a whisper as could be heard over the roaring flames around them. "We know him. He means well, and makes a very useful ally, most days. But tonight he and his rider had one barrel too many. Ginger ale and dragons don't mix." She shook her head, her smooth dark red hair skewing her view of the flames for a second.

She felt, rather than heard Marauder's sputtering laugh at her comment. Fern took her eyes from her work to look at him for a second with a very real smile. "For you and I, it's an innocuous soda. For them, it's an intoxicant. Rummell and Drakin, his rider, are drunk at the moment and this is the result." She cast her eyes back on the trees withering under the power of the drunken dragon's flames. "Vyn is struggling under the burden of holding them in stasis until we can contain the flames and move them both to a less flammable place to sober up."

With one hand, Fern removed a silver amulet on a leather thong from around her neck and spread it easily over Marauder's great head. "You're going to have to trust me. Is that too much to ask?"

His blue eyes searched hers for a second before he blinked. He would trust her, and she was grateful for it.

"Alright, this is the plan. There are smaller animals in the underbrush, trapped by the flames. You can help them. _We_ can help them together." His black and silver head cocked to one side in what felt like confusion. So she went on. "I will build a corridor for you, from the flames. The creatures will be drawn to you because of my amulet. They'll recognize that you represent me and you will have to lead them out. The corridor will turn as you turn, so you set the path. But we have to move fast, because we've already lost far too many. Can you do that?"

His great head went up and down in acceptance, so Fern held the flames contained with one hand pulled from the earth's pulses with all of her might as she rotated the other in a wide arc over and over. Her power became a torrent of wind and charged air that resembled a whirlwind laid on its side. The charmed wind would keep the fire at bay and keep Marauder and any creature he found safe as they passed through the flames. A silver and flame wrapped corridor stretched out before Marauder and she felt not even a flicker of fear from him as he charged in without hesitating.

_Remarkable. He was absolutely remarkable. _She would've had to talk smooth and fast to any other Were she knew to get them to even approach those flames. He moved forward fearlessly, just as he had faced Vyn.

_That was another thing._ Elves didn't miss, as a rule, when they had a target in their sites. It was a point of fierce pride for them. So how exactly had Marauder avoided the arrow in his chest that Vyn had loosed? She had been horrified that she had called him to his death by friendly fire when she had seen the silver and black wolf disappear and reappear closer and more threatening in the span of less than one of her horrified heartbeats. Fern couldn't take the time to ponder how's at the moment though, but her admiration for her new friend grew by leaps and bounds.

As she caught one last glimpse of her friend's black and glinting silver tail, the glade flickered with power and another stepped from the trees. Fern had felt the charge in the atmosphere. Vyn's back up. Thank the Goddess.

She watched, one eye on the flames, one on the scene, as Arnravell came to stand, wordlessly beside Vyn. Arnravell was the same height as Vyn, but older….centuries older. The two of them were like oil and water, honestly, both being elven or not. Their shared heritage was about where the similarities ended.

Arnravell wore formal garb, a silver breastplate laid in golden leather in an intricate pattern across his chest. He must've been called away from some gathering for this effort, which would no doubt have him already impatient and frustrated. His white blonde hair was long and loose down his back, save for a few tight braids around his face. At his appearance, Rammell let loose with another gust of sulfurous air and Arnravell's hair blew back from his face, highlighting the tattoos that stretched from his forehead, across his neck and to chest in tight swirling and spiked patterns that indicated ancient lineage and rank. Despite his age, he too had the same elven beauty that they all did. Age had no real bearing on physical form for them. A fortunate elven trait that kept them all eternally youthful.

His eyes were amber, but shifted to a golden brown in annoyance as he looked at Vyn. The now dark eyes were set deeply and rimmed with dark lashes and high, thin, dark brows. A slightly darker skin made up his smooth features and high cheekbones. The effect only served to highlight the tight lipped look he gave Vyn before she heard an exchange in their language that had Vyn casting a rebellious smirk at the other elve as he took a single step to one side to widen the space between them. His gesture was a silent, challenging "have at it" sort of gesture as he looked up again at the dragon, but Vyn's hands remained in the air with the sheer effort to hold the massive dragon.

Fern kept a tight handle on her thoughts and words around her elven friends. The tongue that remained stapled to the roof of her mouth around people applied to them as well, but they were accustomed to her, after a few years of association.

She spoke as often as she was forced to, and deftly kept the rest to herself. Beautiful men and Fern did not mix, regardless of species. And they were both beautiful, appealing in different ways. Either way, aside from a distaste for one another and a common language, they each shared a kind of beauty that made her eyes cross if she looked too long, or too hard. So Fern usually avoided eye contact altogether, as a rule.

They all had a common goal, protecting the land and the trees. That goal, however, didn't give them access to her thoughts and she purposely kept it that way. Telepathy, empathy, these were common elven traits that kept her on her toes and hiding behind a barrier much like the one Marauder liked to use against her. For this reason, she understood his need for absolute privacy and never reached beyond it in her dealings with him or any other Were if she could help it. As for the elves and their abilities, it might make working together easier if she allowed them in, but it was enough for her to hear and be heard by the animals and the Weres at this point in her skill development.

She knew that to them she was wordlessly powerful. She would take that image of her. Her blast of anger at Vyn's effort to kill her friend moments before had been more words than she had ever spoke in his presence in one sitting…after years of association. _But somehow they all still managed to make a team._ Fern had inherited Leah's place among them when Leah's illness brought an abrupt halt to her work. The others had begrudgingly accepted the young girl with the bright aura of strength they could see would become much more than her mother had ever been. At least that's what they had told her at the time.

Young Fern, hungry for a place and acceptance had taken their decision at face value and accepted with a silent nod. So a deal was struck. With that nod, she bound herself to the trees and the earth of this place, and would do it again in a moment. The ancient tree roots were her roots. The leaves danced in the winds as she danced. This was her home and her bond. Nothing would ever change that, now.

The flames were weakening in strength, kept by her efforts from obtaining more fuel, which the other trees represented. Dragon flames burned higher and hotter than most fire and although Fern could do little to dampen the flames themselves, she could smother them with a lack of something new to burn. Her heart ached for the already consumed trees and underbrush, the wildlife that had already perished.

A thundering crack of power overcame the roar of the flames and the waves of magick rolled around Fern like a rippling tidal wave, making her lose her concentration for a breath as her head whipped around to the elven pair again. Arnravell was gone….and now so were Drakin and Rammell. Vyn was standing, tired hands hanging at his sides, relief stamped across his handsome face. The effort to contain Rammell had worn on him. With a shrug, he strode to where she stood, smiling.

"They have been transported to a place where they can do no more damage for a while." He said simply. "I can see you have the fire dying out." His smile widened in admiration for a moment before he went on. "All that's left now is damage control. I will work at healing the creatures your friend finds, if it's needed." His eyes had faded to a crystalline shade of blue in his relief as he spoke. Fern met his eyes for a moment, which was a mistake.

Words failed her again. As they always did. _Stupid tongue_. She could only nod in the face of his warm smile and its beauty. She could stop forest fires, but could not harness the power of speech among friends. _Humiliating._

"And I'll do my best not to try to kill any more of your Were friends." Vyn went on, his eyes scanning the underbrush for signs of life or anything in need at this point. It occurred to Fern that her outburst of anger had left an impression with him. He sounded almost apologetic, but only just a bit. "Although I would like to know how he moved so fast that I missed him before." Fern heard his deep voice tighten in frustration and could only shrug. She had no answer for that, so words were unnecessary at this point, she supposed.


	8. Chapter 8

Fae, Fae Away

Chapter 8

Klaus moved through the torrent of power and fire, finding that even where he placed his four feet, he didn't burn as he ran. That surprised him. Just as Fern had promised, the corridor moved as he moved. He was able to whip quickly around turns and roiling underbrush, thick with heat and flames as his blue eyes scanned for life. The first he found was a group of deer, surrounded, but not yet consumed by the flames. They made high, mournful baying sounds and the smallest, a yearling, had been badly burned on her right flank. As he spotted them, they also recognized in him safety and rescue, moving toward him and the corridor widened and opened up for them as well at one end.

The female that was wounded though lacked the strength to stand and one of the others hesitated to abandon the youngling. Against every instinct he owned, Klaus moved forward and nosed under the creature, maneuvering the yearling across his own broad back, carrying her himself as he turned to swiftly retrace his steps back toward Fern. He couldn't answer his own questions about why he would do such a thing, but he did it.

Others joined them as they ran, clearly drawn by the amulet. A family of raccoons, some sharply chattering squirrels and a silent pair of skunks with singed tails joined the group as they ran, protected by Fern's strength.

Klaus' answer to why he would work so hard for mere animals came as he broke through the burning underbrush and into the glade that was now permeated with Fern's sweet pine scent. The smile that spread across her face as he brought the wounded animal to her made the beats of the wolf heart in his chest actually increase in force and volume. Sweeping one shoulder down, he allowed the female deer to roll gently to the ground at Fern's feet. This was why he did it. For Fern. For her smiles. _When had that bloody well happened? That he would go above and beyond to please her? _

The one she called Vyn moved forward swiftly, approaching the wounded animal with hands outstretched, but Klaus caught a wry twist of lips on the firmly downturned face. He supposed the dragon had been transported, as Fern had mentioned, leaving the dark haired elven to help with the animals. _How wonderful for everyone_, he thought with one mental eyebrow aloft.

Klaus guessed, by the wise guy grin, that her friend must've caught some implication in the gesture as he had brought the badly wounded animal to Fern's feet. It was possible that her Vyn had heard Klaus' increased pulse, or a flash of his thoughts. _He would have to be more careful, he supposed, around all of them now, not just Fern._

Idly it occurred to him that after a thousand years on this spinning rock that he should be excited to find something new under the sun. Fern's strange world of elves and dragons definitely qualified as new. Quite suddenly, he had things to learn, but rather than being excited, at the moment he was annoyed.

Klaus comforted himself with mentally barricaded images of wiping that grin off her friend's pretty face, along with his head. A single swipe of a broadsword might work….or his bare hands. Elijah was fond of just removing beating hearts with his bare hands, but Klaus liked to do things with a little more dramatic flair. Violent images danced across his mind, making the blue in his large eyes twinkle.

Without looking up again, Klaus plunged again into the torrent in search of more of the creatures that little Fern loved so much.

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Fern watched as Marauder brought three more groups of small animals, some injured, some not, out of the now dying flames without ever stopping, or ever tiring. Vyn worked to heal the animals that needed him and she began pushing her energy more tightly around the fires that were still left with the goal of smothering the flames, which worked.

When everything had died to smolder, she left a tight rein of power over the flames, holding them close to the already scorched earth and surveyed the damage. A five mile radius of new growth was just gone. It was heartbreaking. But this team would not be the ones cleaning up the mess that was left.

Drakin and Rammell would be doing that at twilight the following night, a price for their carelessness. It would break them to see what they had done, and keep it from happening again hopefully. This was how things were done in her world. If someone made a mistake, there was always a price. And for those two, this was a huge mistake.

They would all rest now, the fire contained and controlled. The surviving wildlife had been moved quietly to safer areas and she knew they were all exhausted.

Mentally she called out to Marauder, as he was doing one final sweep. When he reached her, she laid a grateful hand on one wide shoulder, smoothing the dark and now dirty fur of his back.

"We'll rest now. You were a great help. I hope you're hungry." Hand still in his fur, she nodded to Vyn and the three teleported to where they rested after working on nights like this one.

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Giselle's cottage lay just inside the barrier to her world, cloaked in night mists. It appeared small from the outside, but wasn't actually quite so small. Fern had seen Giselle host as many as two dozen people here at once, and comfortably. She didn't honestly know how many rooms were in the "little" cottage. She had never found an end to the hallways. Each door opened to another warm room with a bed if it was needed, or was ringed in soft, comfortable seating and expertly placed pillows or fresh flowers.

The cottage itself had changed again. Tonight, the exterior was painted a light khaki brown and trimmed in maroon for the shutters and doors. With every visit, the exterior was a new color. Once it had been pink with green trim, another time yellow with blue trim. Fern knew that her friend's love of both color and home met to reflect wonderfully in both the interior and exterior of her home.

The entrance was ringed in flowers arranged in tight patterns, this time darker flowers all in bloom in deep reds and purples to accent the trim. Giselle loved order and decorating almost as much as she loved hosting and spreading her maternal arms wide for anyone who needed rest and care. Light shone from the dining room and kitchen windows that were lined with over flowing window boxes filled with more flowers. The place glimmered like a beacon of welcome. _Giselle and her nurturing was exactly what they all needed tonight after some of the heartbreak._

She met them at the door, as she always did. Like the others, she appeared ageless and Fern had no clue as to her actual age. She was a few inches shorter than Fern, her shapely form wrapped in her customary apron, cinched tightly at her waist. Wavy blonde hair framed her lovely face and hung to just below her shoulders. She wrapped first Fern and then Vyn in a warm hug, whispering words of kindness and comfort, already knowing all that had been lost tonight. Giselle paused though, at the newcomer and stooped to meet Marauder, eye to eye.

"I understand you have been a great help tonight. You have all of our thanks. Please make yourself comfortable here." She stretched out a small hand slowly and Marauder tipped his head forward as she rubbed him behind one ear.

Fern was still wearing a silent smile as she stepped in and around a corner to the dining room where the group that had already gathered and were at various stages of eating. Giselle always insisted that they eat as they arrived. She said she hated for food to get cold, but it never did, no matter how long it sat or how long everyone talked.

A broad wooden table was so laden with food that Fern almost felt the wood groan under the load it proudly bore. Raw vegetables, some of them she couldn't identify, were arranged for the elven. At another end, a roasted chicken had been carved and waited for Fern. It was her favorite. A plate with varying kinds of breads was displayed artfully in the middle. Again, there were some she couldn't identify, but knew that they were preferred by the elven males, who were vegan.

Fern kept her eyes down, as she always did, but knew that the table was rounded out by the others.

There was Decker, the mage, organizer and peacekeeper of their group. When arguments erupted, which they did at times considering there were so many varying personalities here; he had a quiet, fatherly way of resolving them. To human eyes, he would've appeared in his sixties. Where the others were centuries old, Decker was an ancient and commanded respect with his manner alone. He had dark, short hair, shot with bits of grey and kind, dark eyes. He wore a distracted air around him like a cloak, but Fern somehow knew that very little escaped him. She privately thought the distraction he pretended at was his way of keeping the others at arm's length, and a warm heart protected. There had been much loss along the way and sometimes it was easier to seem disinterested than to open oneself up to real loss. Being an ancient, he had seen a great deal, and she felt sure he had lost a great deal more.

Fern sat quietly watching Marauder from the corner of her eye take in the scene from a spot he had chosen near her. Drakin was face down on the table, stretched out and still evidently more than a little intoxicated. He was normally very talkative and friendly. He had tried more than once to get more than a word or two from Fern, but his efforts hadn't gotten him far…..and resulted in more than a little embarrassment for her.

He was a very attractive, broad shouldered, darkly tanned man who took up a lot of space in his current condition and the others gave him a wide berth. He had dark, shortly cropped hair and wore a dark beard that was trimmed to a tight line along his jaw. His armor, all made from Rammell's shed scales, had been laid neatly in the empty seat next to him, probably by Giselle in an effort to make him moderately comfortable.

For his armor, he had once said in conversation that the dragon scales were the hardest substance he had ever found. They were nearly impenetrable with any form of weaponry, and resistant to flames, naturally. He wore it proudly. Under it, he wore a loose black shirt that appeared to be made of silk, but Fern knew it wasn't actually. This material moved with him, stretching and then retaining its shape like nothing she had ever seen. Even the clothes her friends wore was foreign.

She watched silently, chewing a small piece of chicken as Giselle brought a plate from the kitchen and laid it on the floor next to Marauder. Fern reached out, hoping for an impression of how he was taking all of this. She had already noted the distinct impression that he was quietly amazed by everything he had seen from the moment he had seem Rammell hanging suspended in the air above their glade, his fully expanded wings barely missing the trees.

The plate Giselle brought was piled high with raw venison. The best cuts, or so it appeared, were laid before Marauder and Fern picked up his quiet surprise. Giselle always just knew exactly what each of them liked best, it was part of her magick. The flicker of iridescent power, Giselle's trademark, was visible to Fern's eyes all around the plate of food that Marauder sniffed and then accepted with a gracious tilt of his head at the blonde.

Giselle noticed his surprise too, smiling at him and lightly touching his ear again. "I know how to feed my guys. Tonight, you are one of my guys. So eat." Her green eyes twinkled at him and Marauder's eyes glazed over for a second. Giselle's smile could be disarming to males.

Fern interrupted his thoughts with a directed mental message that had his head whipping around at her before he took the first bite. _Now,_ _my friend, you can finally say that you've met a faerie. _His blue eyes were wide with astonishment and Fern smiled warmly at him, remembering him mistaking her for a faerie early on in their friendship.

The moment was interrupted, though, by a frustrated groan from Arnravell, who had sat silently at the opposite end of the table until then. He lifted the back of a single hand to his nose as he addressed Fern in the silence that had fallen around the table.

"Is there any good reason, Fern, why we must be assailed with the smell of wet dog while we eat?" The mists outside Giselle's home had covered Marauder's fur with a layer of moisture as they came and she had to agree that the scent did permeate the room. "Why does he not just shift?" One dark brow lifted in Arnravell's seemingly perpetual annoyance.

Fern went still with discomfort as she realized she didn't have an answer for that.

Grasping for what to say and hoping her tongue wouldn't betray her, Fern caught a glimpse of a mental image Marauder unintentionally sent her in response. She choked and sputtered for a moment before her own high laughter filled the room as the entire group went still in surprise at the sound. They had never heard her laugh before.

She saw Marauder before he had shifted to wolf form running through the woods, in answer to her call. He had not stopped to consider clothing. The clear images of him, with naked humanoid arms and legs pumping fast, moving at high speed through trees and underbrush played like a film across her mind. He had run completely naked and unashamed through the woods and the image made her tip back on her tailbone with the laughter as she had with him many times before.

Astonishment filled the room as the silence drew out and Fern could feel the collective wonder of the people around her.

Fern fought for control as she realized she had the entire room's attention. She felt her face flush to a deep maroon, almost as if to match Giselle's shutters and trim outside. After a last, hard swallow of her mirth, she opened a single hand over her plate and the scent of lavender filled the room, covering the unpleasant scent.

She smothered a grin, smiling warmly for the first time ever at Arnravell. He responded by tilting his head to one side and mirroring the smile back at her while his amber eyes held questions she couldn't answer. The images of Marauder, in human form and naked, running to her rescue as tree branches slapped muscled legs still flickered behind her eyes. "Let's just say it's best for everyone to leave him be for now."


End file.
